I wanted a place to discuss my handguns and firearms in general. Everyone seemingly has lots to say about guns, so I promise you this won't be a rant blog.
1. We bought Remington R1 mags (45ACP doublestacked) for use with my RIA 10mm HC, since I can’t find any Armscor mags. One mag feeds well, the other does not. Also, the R1 mags will fit the OEM 10mm base plates.
2. We had feed issues with the RIA 22TCM extracting spent cases (the cases were getting stuck in the chamber). This was an ammo issue – I had half a box of older ammo that I’d put aside because I was blowing primers and one case refused to come out of the chamber. I’d forgotten that this was a box I wasn’t supposed to finish shooting. In fact, there was one primer that was blown out in this range visit (I forgot to mention that in the video).
3. I’ve been frustrated with all of my 1911s, thinking that I can’t shoot them because I’m never able to have tight groupings or that I’m always hitting low left (meaning I’m flinching or have bad trigger discipline). Well, I prove that’s not the case on this range visit, as I also took my 9mm RIA Rock Ultra. My groups were tight and directly under the bullseye. I was shooting this gun the same way as the other two. This proves I need to make sight adjustments. In this case, I need to move the POI up 2 inches. In the case of the 10mm, I need to adjust the sights up and to the right a few inches. Not sure yet on how I need to adjust the sights on the 22TCM (maybe 2″ to the right).
I picked up the RIA Rock Ultra FS HC 10mm this morning before work (5 min wait to get background check results – I’m squeaky clean).
As usual, the handgun was covered in cosmoline and was in a plastic bag. It came with one mag (as expected) and a manual. The envelope with the spent cases showed an inspection date of 12/18/2020, meaning the gun is new.
The recoil spring is Popeye strong…you probably need to open a can of spinach to rack the slide. I’m not joking…it’s strong and probably needs to be. One of the things I struggle with when handling the gun is racking the slide. I wish the slide had more aggressive serrations, because I sometimes can’t get a good enough grip to properly rack the gun.
I field-stripped the gun to clean off the preservative (it is not lube). The machining is really nice. This gun has a bull barrel, too…there’s no bushing, so you need to use a tool or paper clip to field strip the gun. Now, to break down the recoil spring assembly (which consists of the recoil rod, spring, and reverse plug), you’re not going to be able to do it your fingers. The spring is far too strong. Use the slide to help with that process.
The thumb safety needs to be tightened…it’s a bit loose (all of my Filipino 1911s were).
I changed the fiber filament of the front sight. I had trouble removing it. It appears as if someone (maybe) used an adhesive or even Locktite to secure it. I replaced it with a TruGlo filament.
I took the gun to the range this evening, along with my RIA 22TCM. The Rock Ultra manages recoil very well…I had no issues controlling the handgun, although I was using 180-gr FMJ range ammo (S&B and Ammo Inc). It shoots far better than my Glock 22, but it has a lot more weight than the G22, as well. The 10mm was launching spent casings against the side of the booth and I’ve no doubt it’ll throw brass 30 or so feet.
The S&B ammo is NICE ammo! It’s clean and very accurate. I was shooting from 7 yards. I always do…no need to shoot further than that, IMO, and it’s a good distance to benchmark a handgun. I shot 25 rounds of S&B, noting that my grouping was relatively tight. I then loaded a mag of the Ammo Inc. That ammo sucks!! I was all over the place and at first thought it was me. No. The ammo is very inconsistent and was throwing ammo all over the target. I will not be buying anymore of that ammo…well, I might, if the ammo prices keep climbing. Bad ammo is better than no ammo, I guess.
As always, when shooting 1911s, I always shoot low left of center. The groups may be tight, but I still shoot low left. I think I’ve determined what I’m doing wrong. When the gun is in my hand and I’m aiming down the sights, I’m almost 100% certain that the gun isn’t aiming straight down-range. I must be aiming left. Also, I caught myself (twice) flinching when pulling the trigger. The flinching is making me pull low left – I actually saw it when reviewing my GoPro range footage (which is why I use the camera when shooting). So, I’ve to work on getting better at shooting 1911s. I did eventually walk the rounds to bulls-eye with the 22TCM 1911, though (I shot 50 rounds).
I will return to the range soon, but will probably bring the AK pistols next go around. I may bring the Rock Ultra as well, if I can find more 10mm ammo.
NOTE: all targets were shot from 7 yards standing.
I was going to the range Sunday morning and the wife woke up and asked where I was going. I said, “the range.” She said, “I wanted to go too,” and I said, “well, get dressed and come with me!”
We brought four guns with us: her Ruger SR-9C, my RIA 22TCM MS 1911, and my Bersa Thunder 380 Plus. Of course, I was carrying my Grand Power P11 in a concealed fashion, too…that went with us.
We arrived and she had to take a gun safety orientation class. It was also crowded but we didn’t have to wait long for an open lane.
We decided to shoot her Ruger first. It had never been fired before and she’s owned it over a year. It was cleaned and lubed (by me) and ready to fire. We loaded the ammo (she’d never done that before…for a handgun, at least) into the two mag that the handgun came with (one 10-round and one 15-round mag). I gave her a quick summary on how to hold her gun and to not put her finger on the trigger until she was ready to fire. She knows proper sight alignment already (she’s retired US Army). Then, to demonstrate the proper hold and trigger discipline, she stood beside me and I squeezed the first round out of her handgun. The round went right into the red. That is a testament to the gun’s trigger and sights because that normally doesn’t happen with me…it usually takes me a few mags to warm up.
I then gave her the handgun and she shot her first two handgun mags ever:
All but 5 of those are probably kill shots. And one of those in the red is mine (the one that’s to the direct left of the X)! We ended up firing 100 rounds out of the SR-9C. The ammo was Remington UMC yellow box (mega) FMJ. There were no failures whatsoever.
I ended up firing more ammo from her gun than she did. Here’s my target:
If she doesn’t want her SR-9, I’ll take it…I’m happy with the way it shoots and the trigger is exceptional!
Next, we fired my 1911. I fired the first shots so she wouldn’t be surprised. She was still surprised. I told her it was loud and shot out fire. I think she thought I was exaggerating. After the first two shots, she said, “OK, this gun is loud!” She later (after the range) said she was intimidated by it. She shot it extremely well. She loved the heft and the fact that the weight negated the recoil (never mind that it’s going to be a soft shooter anyways). I took video of her shooting this gun and I was honestly flinching the whole time due to the muzzle flash. The guy the next lane over kept looking over, probably mentally saying, “WTF is that?”
We fired 59 rounds of 22TCM with no failures whatsoever, although she kept unintentionally enabling the safety, which makes me wonder if it’s not positive enough in engagement…IMO, one should not be unintentionally enabling a safety.
I didn’t get a snapshot of the target but here’s some footage of her shooting the 22TCM:
Our time was running out so we had to decide on shooting only one of the two guns that still hadn’t been fired. She decided to shoot my carry gun, the Grand Power P11, a sub-compact. We only fired 36 rounds out of the P11, but I think she loved this gun just as much as the 1911. She loved the lack of recoil. I later showed her why it had no recoil…I showed her how the barrel rotated. And she was very accurate with this gun too. Here’s the target:
I shot a magazine and all my shots grouped under the red…very tight grouping and I wasn’t shooting slow. She shot a mag and started up high (the grouping around the 7 & 8, above the red) then she took better aim and plugged the middle grouping. She wasn’t messing around!
I shot the last mag of the day, from the P11:
I was going for head shots since we were out of targets. I was trying to shoot once and rapidly follow up with another (not quite double-taps). I had several flyers but still, that’s a pretty tight group of 12!
She said she wants a sub-compact. I have a few sub-compacts she’ll probably shoot: a Sig Sauer P320C slide on an SC grip module; a Springfield XD9 Mod 2 9mm; a Bersa Thunder 380 Plus (not really a true sub-compact). And she’ll probably end up renting some range guns to get a feel for what sub-compact she enjoys shooting.
We’re going to try an outdoor range this weekend if it isn’t too cold.
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Other happenings:
I ordered 3 mags for my P11 from Cheaper Than Dirt. I ordered 3 12-round mags. They sent me 3 15-round mags. I double-checked the receipt and sho-nuff it says that I ordered 3 12-round mags. I was a bit pissed. I do not want the hassle of having to ship these back while waiting for them to send me the correct mags. I opened one mag’s packaging and inserted it into the P11. It fits fine, although it’s long and hangs out of the gun by an inch or so. It’s fine for the range but not fine for carrying. I guess I can keep them for range duty and use the two that came with the gun as carry mags. :/
I also ordered 4 Jagemann 15-round mags for my Glock 19. My Glock came with 3 10-round mags. They’re supposed to be good mags. We’ll see. They were cheap @ approx $11 apiece.
Last night I visited Elite Shooting Sports to shoot my .22TCM MS 1911 and Metro Arms ACC .45ACP 1911.
First, I started out with the .22TCM 1911. I was immediately accurate with it (well, accurate enough considering I’d not shot it since April 2015, I was shooting it pretty well):
From 7 yards
I then moved the target out and focused on the head:
From 10 yards
I then moved to the .45ACP and didn’t fare as well. The last time I fired this handgun was Feb 2015:
7 yards out
The recoil took me aback. Now, when I first shot this gun, it felt great in my hands. For some reason, it didn’t feel great this time around, but this could be because I’d just shot the .22TCM 1911, which has VZ grips. It could also be because I’m more used to 9mm now (this gun has substantial push/recoil, even with it being a beaver-tailed). Here’s more:
I stayed 7 yards out, since I was having issues putting lead onto the bulls-eye
I can’t understand what I was doing wrong. Yes, I’m aware of target analysis and what it means when I’m grouping to the lower left of the target. I actually took my time with several magazines to ensure I was properly actuating the trigger, but I was still hitting lower left. Although I was able to touch the bulls-eye, I wasn’t able to do it consistently. I couldn’t hit the head of the target, either.
I was using TulAmmo and Winchester white box JHP. The TulAmmo was inconsistent, power-wise, as I noticed that the slide moved slowly many times, so I switched to the Winchester and noticed less of that, but only shot maybe 25 rounds of it. I still wasn’t hitting where I wanted, but at least the slide was acting normally when the gun went BANG. Another thing — this gun does NOT like TulAmmo. The ammo kept hanging on the feed ramp. I didn’t notice this when I first shot it back in February.
Here are my range notes from February:
Half of the ammo was Remington UMC (green/white box). 47 of it was Perfecta FMJ. I had 3 x FTEs with the black (original) mag.
This gun is FUN to fire! The recoil is much less than the P220. It is also very controllable, aim-wise — I nailed the bulls-eye several times and the majority of my hits were toward the middle when compared to the groupings of the other guns I’ve fired.
Back to this range visit. The Winchester JHP did fine, but TulAmmo is dirty as hell…the feed ramp was heavily covered in carbon. I can polish the feed ramp but I won’t. I just won’t shoot TulAmmo as defensive ammo…that’s the best solution. It’s the ammo, not the gun, and since this is practice ammo, it’s all good.
Very odd failure to extract situation here…I had to drop the mag to clear it (it wouldn’t rack back).
I had several FTEs in Feb that I attributed to a possible mag issue. I think that was a wrong assessment, since the mag would have nothing to do with any problems after the round has been fired. I also had several FTEs with this range visit (2-3). All of it was with the TulAmmo. None of the Winchester FTE’d. A friend suggested I was limp-wristing. I don’t think I’ve ever limp-wristed a big caliber handgun before…I don’t think it’s happening now, either, but I’m not sure how to test for that, but like I said, none of the other ammo failed to extract. I’m going to attribute this to the the TulAmmo.
Lesson learned – don’t shoot TulAmmo from this gun!
Notice in my notes that I had no issues controlling the gun, I was able to nail the bulls-eye several times, and most of the rounds were hitting toward the middle. What has changed? The ammo? My perceptions on this gun’s recoil? I’ll admit, when I first pulled the trigger, the recoil caught me off-guard (I’m used to firing 9mm). It could’ve ruined the rest of my session with this gun. Should I keep practicing with it? I’m not planning to carry any of my .45ACP handguns, so it’s not essential that I train with this particular gun. It’s a range gun, for now, but it does bug me that I can’t put lead on target with this gun like I can with my other handguns. I just might change the grips, though (to a set of VZ grips).
And then, when I went back to my .22TCM, I found that I couldn’t hit anywhere near where I was aiming, when I had such a good session with it at the beginning of the range session. I fired 25 rounds before deciding to quit for the night…I left the range in a bit of a fog. I’m not sure why my aim was so jacked up after switching up guns…maybe I was slapping the trigger or maybe I the gun wasn’t properly centered in my hands…I don’t know.
It’s a Glock 17 conversion that allows the firing of the 22TCM round. This conversion works well with full-length handguns, as the extra barrel length gives more “ooomph” to the round. I’ve heard they’re making a Glock 19 conversion, too. And they lightened that slide bigtime.
The two cons are:
It’ll take a paper clip to get the spring and guide rod back into place after field-stripping the gun.
These conversions don’t work with Gen 4 Glocks. They only work with Gen 3s (I’m not sure if they’ll work on Gen 2s and below, either).
The conversion is expensive ($400+ for the slide, guide rod and spring). If you don’t already have a Gen 3 Glock 17, then you’ll have to spend money on that, too. When the fat lady has sung, it’ll be a $700+ for the conversion and the handgun. If you already have a Glock 17, then you’re halfway there!
And the 22TCM 9R round will fit in Glock mags (they’re shorter than the standard 22TCM round).
A range officer saw the ammo on the range table and was asking what type of ammo it was. He stayed while I shot the first magazine. He was awed and saw how tight the shot groupings were…many of the target holes were on top of each other. He also commented on the muzzle flash. It was bright enough to where I was sometimes flinching! I’m disappointed with the video footage…the footage wasn’t framed good. I may try to go to the range again tomorrow.
I shot 100 rounds through the gun. There were only two feed issues. One was when a spent case didn’t want to come out (common issue that’s related to the ammo case out of round or expanding). The other (right after the first feed issue) was a double-feed. After that, there were no more issues.
This 1911 has next to no recoil and had tight groupings, but I’m STILL not in full control of trigger pull (working on it…practice makes perfect).
Oh, and there’s copper along the slide, next to the ejector. I’ve heard of someone mentioning that issue before (not sure what the cure was, other than sending it back to Armscor to have the extractor tuned).
By the way, the .22 TCM round is basically a shortened .223 round (no, it isn’t a necked down 9mm). It’ll pierce 3/16″ steel. It has an approximate velocity of 2000 feet/sec, but realistic speeds from the Commander-sized barrel is in the 1900 feet/sec range, while RIA’s .22 TCM rifles will shoot this round at 2800 feet/sec.
I also fired my FDE Canik TP9SA. The gun had no issues. I fired close to 100 rounds from it (half of it JHP that was also shooting flames…wonder if it was +P…I think it was some left-over Remington JHP that I was firing during my last range session). There were no jams, but the mags are super-tight…I could only get 17 rounds into the mags up until the 3rd refill.
I bought another Rock Island Armory 1911, the MS Ultra (or what used to be called a Tactical MS 2011), manufacture number 51963 (Armscor link it dead, but this one works)
UPDATE: As of 9/12/2022, this gun isn’t available for purchase from Armscor, although you might be able to find it as a used gun or at a gun store that has old stock. The closest things to this gun that is currently on the Armscor website are items 56636 (FS), 56634 (CCO), and 56633 (CS-L) – all three of them being sold with two barrels (9mm and 22TCM9R); All three are Rock Ultras and are single stacked. There are two Tac Ultras that shoot both 9mm and 22TCM9R – 56635 (single stacked) and 56632 (double stacked). The closest in-production RIA to my MS Tac Ultra (51963) is 56632 – that one is a MS Tac Ultra, but it is double stacked.
What’s the difference between that one and the one I currently have? Well, the 51963 will shoot two calibers – .22TCM and 9mm (it comes with two barrels and recoil springs). It also has an accessory rail. The barrels also aren’t bull barrels. Those are the only differences.
The cons of this weapon? The only ammo maker that has this ammo type is Armscor (the maker of this gun). Also, I’d initially thought I was locked into specific magazines for this round, as the .22TCM round is longer than a 9mm round, so I can’t use a 9mm 1911 magazine (well, I CAN, but only if I’ve the 9mm barrel installed), but I’ve found that I can use 1911 mags for .38 Super calibers…basically, that’s what the MS Ultra 22TCM/9mm 1911 uses as a magazine — 1911 .38 Super mags.
I did take the liberty of ordering 250 rounds of 22TCM via online store…it should arrive today. I also found that there’s at least one local store that carries 22TCM. Although they sell it for $6 more than where I found it online, I can rely upon the local store for emergencies. I’d have ordered more 22TCM but I’m due to begin packing up for location move…I don’t think the movers will pack up ammo and I’m already going to have a car that’s heavy with weapons…I’d prefer not to be carrying a ton of ammo too. Once I’ve finalized the relocation, I can then stockpile ammo.
I can’t wait to shoot this gun, but I may wait until tomorrow so that I can clean the gun first. The gun has already arrived at the FFL and I’m awaiting them to call me for pickup, but I can’t go until Fedex delivers that ammo I ordered, otherwise I’ll miss the delivery.
UPDATE:
Fedex waited until 7PM to deliver the ammo. They also dropped it off on the front doorstep and barely knocked on the door. If I’d have known they’d do that, I’d have picked up the weapon without worrying about missing the ammo shipment. The FFL was open until 8PM and I didn’t get there until 7:10. I inspected the weapon and bought another 100 rounds of ammo (that’s the second source of .22TCM ammo that’s local to me, @ $25 a 50-round box). It took me 10 minutes to do the paperwork and another 5 minutes of waiting to see if the background check was good (it always is, and always takes 5 minutes). I was home before 7:30PM.
The gun is NICE. The slide to frame tolerance is quite a bit tighter than my Tactical II RIA, at least from looking at the rear of where the slide meets the frame. With the Tactical II, I can actually see a bit of daylight in some cases, but my Metro Arms is tight…just not as tight as this TCM.
The differences between this gun and my Tactical II is:
The slide has a flat area down the top of the slide.
The slide serrations on the TCM are larger and are canted forward.
The TCM comes with a railed dust cover.
The TCM comes with two barrels and recoil springs (9mm and 22TCM).
The TCM is easier to take down (it breaks down in the traditional 1911 manner — has a barrel bushing).
The magazine follower is a bit different in shape, to allow for usage of both 9mm and 22TCM ammo.
I haven’t been to the range yet. Today is Friday…I’ve no reason to not go to the range and test this gun tonight.
